


Roots

by Fyre



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Jewish Howard Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 09:04:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4054348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter where you go or how high you rise, it doesn't change where you came from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roots

**Author's Note:**

> I've been meaning to write this ever since Agent Carter aired. Don't know why it took so long, but it's finally here :) Also, if anyone is wondering why I'm writing Howard Stark as Jewish, that's because it's what the writers in the show pretty much implied about him. I've done an analysis of it [here](http://mcumeta.tumblr.com/post/109795706083/i-grew-up-on-the-lower-east-side-my-father-sold), for the curious :)

They had three days before they were due to ship back out to join Phillips on the front line, and Howard was making the most of the time left in civilised parts. 

His skin was still pink and warm from an hour long bath. His moustache was trimmed. He’d had his hair cut, and now, he was seated in front of a roaring fire, with not a speck of dirt on him, reading the papers and enjoying a scotch.

Jarvis was laying out the supper dishes. Sure, there was a war on and the food was rationed, but that didn’t mean the hotel didn’t know how to make their meagre spread look good. It even smelled pretty good as well. 

“They have provided two meals, sir,” Jarvis said, glancing over. 

Howard smiled. “Well, there are two of us, aren’t there?” he said, uncrossing his legs and unfolding from the sofa. 

Jarvis straightened up, looking uncertain. “Sir, I hardly think it’s suitable that I sit at the same table of you. I mean, after everything, it would be best if I…”

“Stuff a sock in it, Jarvis,” Howard snorted, tossing the papers down on the couch. “I ordered two meals. They brought us two meals, so we’re gonna eat the two meals.” He raised his eyebrows in amusement as Jarvis pulled the chair back. “You keep doing that, and I’m going to forget how to sit down by myself.”

Jarvis shrugged slightly. “It’s a butler’s role, sir.”

“Sir.” Howard shook his head. “Never going to get used to that either.” He gestured to the other chair, then reached for the wine bottle to pour them a glass each. “You want to sit down? I wanna eat before this gets cold.” 

Jarvis reluctantly sat down, arranging a napkin in his lap. He barely had a chance to pick up his fork before the phone rang. Howard looked at him expectantly, and Jarvis was on his feet in an instant, and across the room. Howard turned his back, smiling, as he poured the wine. 

“Howard Stark’s suite. How may I be of assistance?” Jarvis was silent for a moment, then covered the receiver. “Sir, it seems there is a woman downstairs. She is under the impression that she is expected.”

Howard glanced at his reflection in the window, then out to the lights of the city beyond. “I guess I forgot I invited someone,” he said, lazily, and spun around. “You don’t mind giving up your supper for a lady, right?”

Jarvis would never complain, not in a million years, but Howard could recognise the way his shoulders dropped just a little, like he had been expecting it all the time. “Of course not, Mr Stark,” he said. He uncovered the receiver. “Please send her up at once.”

He set down the phone and returned to the table, placing the cover over the salver again. “I shall make myself scarce once the lady arrives, sir. I would not want to be in the way.”

“Atta boy, Jarvis.” Howard wondered if his grin was too obvious. He lifted one of the wine glasses and held it up in a toast. “You’ll enjoy working for me. I’m predictable. I like fine wine, good food, and beautiful women.”

“I’m beginning to see that, sir,” Jarvis said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll tidy the place a little for your guest.”

He rushed around the room, neatening up the papers, moving folded clothes, and pretty much making a tidy suite even tidier by sheer force of stiff-upper-lip. Howard watched him, and sipped the wine.

When his guest knocked on the door, Jarvis looked around once more, then hurried over. 

Howard lowered his eyes to his glass.

Some reunions were meant to be private.

He heard the door open, heard Jarvis’s breath catch. 

“Anna?”

“Edwin…”

Howard tilted his glass, smiling into the depths. “Surprise.”

He heard the door close, and he could hear muffled sobbing. Anna, he suspected, but it could well be Jarvis too. There was only so much lip that could be stiff or upper. He raised his eyes and saw them holding on to one another tightly, as if they couldn’t bear to let go.

No wonder, all things considered. 

“I… I don’t understand,” Jarvis said. “How is this possible?”

Anna was shaking her lovely dark head. “They say… Mr Stark. They say he send. Ask for me.” Her voice was shaking with emotion.

Jarvis looked back at Howard, his eyes wide, shocked. Stunned. “Mr Stark… I don’t understand… why would you… why did you do this?”

Howard waved a hand, hoping it looked as dismissive as he was aiming for. “You know I have a weakness for romance and pretty girls, Jarvis.” He tilted his glass towards Jarvis’s precious Anna. “Nice to finally meet you.”

Anna stared at him, all large dark eyes and rich dark curls. She looked like so many of the girls on his block, the ones he’d seen in the stores and outside the Synagogue before he’d jumped that ship, before he’d taken up the less obvious name of Stark. 

She rushed across the room, and hugged him as suddenly and urgently as she had hugged Jarvis. When she spoke it was a babble of a language he didn’t know, and could only guess was Hungarian.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said softly, his hands carefully and modestly on her shoulders. “It’s only English for me.”

She looked up, searching his face, then hugged him again, her lips close to his ear. 

When she whispered, it was to thank him in the language of his bubbe, who taught him his pleases and thank yous. It was the language of his parents when they argued about his schooling. It was the language of the neighbourhood that he had left behind, and he was staring at her.

She had made him, in five seconds flat. Even if Jarvis didn’t know why, she did.

“You’re welcome,” was all he could think to say, in the same tongue, in little more than a whisper.

She smiled at him, her eyes bright as lamps, tears on her cheeks. She turned to rush Jarvis, wrapping her arms around him.

Howard gathered what was left of his composure around him. “I’m going to bed,” he declared. “You guys enjoy your supper. The other room is yours as long as you want it.” He managed to pick up his glass and get back to his bedroom on the far side of the suite before Jarvis could stop him.

“Sir!”

His hand on the doorknob, Howard looked back. “Jarvis, I didn’t bring her all the way here so you could babysit me,” he said. “You have a dinner for two. Candlelight. A view.” He smiled. “And tomorrow, if you’re still ready for it, a registry office.”

Jarvis’s hand came to his mouth, and yup, sure enough, the poor sap was crying. 

Howard closed the door behind him, and turned the key in the lock. He leaned back against the panelled wood of the door. His legs were shaking, and he knocked his head back. 

She wouldn’t tell anyone. Not with everything going on. Not when she knew how people would treat him, the way she, her family, their people had been treated. But it was something he hadn’t expected to face, not again, not after so long.

He lifted his glass in a shaking hand, and took a mouthful of wine. 

It had been a kindness, when he’d used his money and his influence to save her. He liked Jarvis, and like everyone else, he’d heard what was happening all across Europe under the Nazis. That was why he was involved at all. The SSR and the armed forces thought it was all about turning a profit, or showing off his inventions. Maybe a little of it was about that, but more than anything, he wanted to have some part in stopping the Nazis.

Then the battle of Finnau happened. Battle. Christ, if it could even be called that. When he’d seen bodies scattered everywhere, it was like the massacres he’d seen in the news clippings and the briefings. But this time, it was on him. It was his work that had done it.

He hadn’t just saved Anna for Jarvis. Not by a long shot. He had saved her for the sake of his bubbe, his parents, Esther in the store under their apartment, Isaac who made his first good shoes, Miss Goldstein who taught him his letters. He’d saved her for his own sake, saving a life instead of ending one. A tiny speck of light a one hell of a dark and grim world. 

It was a reminder of who he was, and where he came from, and the people who had helped to climb as high as he had. Of the people he wanted to save, not the people he wanted to destroy.

Howard drained the glass, and set it on the dresser. He looked at his reflection in the mirror.

No matter how far he went, little Howie from the Lower East Side still looked back at him.


End file.
